What Does Judges 1:9 Mean?
And afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who settled in the mountain, and in the south, and in the valley.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites, that dwelt in the mountain, and in the south, and in the valley.THE KEY
The fight begins with descent: Judah moves into occupied ground and across the whole spread of terrain.
THE MEANING
You see Judah going down to fight the Canaanites across mountain, southland, and lowland. Conflict fills the landscape; the descent carries Judah into it.
THE ROOT
יָרְדוּ
yāredû
GROWS FROM
ירד
to descend, go down
“went down” in this verse is yāredû. Judah goes down with יָרְדוּ, a form of יָרַד (yarad), before the verse even names the battle. The same root appears in יֹרֵד (yored), one who descends, and יְרִידָה (yeridah), a descent; downward movement is the opening action that carries Judah into occupied ground.
ALSO GROWS
yored: one who is descending
יֹרֵד
This participle keeps the root’s downward movement active, as in Judah’s descent into the scene.
yeridah: descent
יְרִידָה
This noun names the movement that the verse gives as Judah’s first action.
בַּשְּׁפֵלָה
bashshephelah
GROWS FROM
שפל
to be low; to lower or bring low
The word translated “valley” is בַּשְּׁפֵלָה, the Shephelah or lowland, from שפל (shafal), low. The same root describes what is low and what is brought low, so the verse’s terrain word carries a sense of lowering beneath its geographic meaning.
ALSO GROWS
shafal: low, lowly
שָׁפָל
It shares the root consonants and makes the lowland sense of the Shephelah audible.
hishpil: to lower, bring low
הִשְׁפִּיל
This verb shares the same root and extends the word’s sense from low terrain to the act of lowering.
THE PATTERN
A descent carries a person into terrain where the next encounter unfolds.
But Jonah rose up to run to Tarshish from the face of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish. He gave its price, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the face of the LORD.And Jesus took it up and said, A certain man was stepping down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who stripped him of his clothing and laid blows on him, and went away, leaving him half dead.THE THREAD
And there was hunger in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for the hunger was heavy in the land.Judges and Genesis use the same Hebrew root, ירד (yarad), for going down. In both verses, descent brings someone into different ground as the scene turns toward what awaits there.
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